Background: Project is a 1-hour, spoken-word PowerPoint slide presentation, about 60 slides, about 1 min each. Audio has been split into one CD-quality, mono .wav file for import to each slide. All clips are excerpts from the same, full-length .wav file. Nothing fancy, no captions, animations, etc. Just one dog and one pony in this show. Using fully updated version of Captivate 4.

Problem: Upon export to SWF, any changes I make to the audio quality settings do not take. That is, I still get a huge SWF file with full CD quality sound. SWF file size is ~47MB. Should be closer to ~25MB or even less at my target quality of 11kHz, 24kbps.

What I've tried: I have adjusted both the Audio Settings for the project, as well as the SWF Size and Quality settings (in the Preferences dialog box, Project category) by alternately selecting "Low" or unchecking the "Retain slide quality settings" box, then synchronizing the settings with the settings in the Audio Settings. I have also tried selecting and unselecting all SWF compression options.

I have tested this on two computers, one XP Pro, the other Vista Home Premium 64-bit. Both Captivate installations are fully updated. Same results on both.

Things that make me go "Hmm": I can create a Captivate project with one slide as a test and achieve full flexibility of audio kHz and kbps upon export to SWF; that is, it works just like I want. However, as soon as I add a second slide, my export quality reverts to full CD-quality. I've even tried this with an extremely simple project with no PowerPoint slide, no skin, just blank white slides. So, I do not think it is an issue connected to some other aspect of the project in question.

So... Is this a bug? The odd thing is that this process has worked in the past. It seems that it has suddenly become a problem. If it were on only one computer, I would reinstall, but given the same outcome on two very different computers, it seems very unlikely that the same quirk has materialized in both.

This is a long shot, but you could try copying and pasting all of your slides into a new instance of Captivate. If you have specified certain audio settings Captivate should pick these up when you export. If not then it is possible that your CP file has become corrupted.

If that doesn't work, please file a bug report using the web address I have included below.